The other day (I think it was Thursday ... yes, I'm fairly certain it was) I caught a 3-car (!?!) B train at Arlington.

It was kind of funny because it had a little bit of paper in the front window proclaiming its 3-car status. I didn't realize that they were running 3-car trains yet because I thought that some of the stations weren't long enough?

Two weeks ago, I saw a 3 car train on the Riverside line while passing by on rte 9 in Brookline. They have been upgrading the catenary for at least 3 years to handle 3 car trains. I'm glad to see they're finally operating.

They have been running 3 car trains for a long time on the D line. Was it a B line train? They just started doing that because of the station closings. And the stations are long enough, at least the underground ones. Some street stops I am not so sure about.

Hope they can do more of them in the future, it will help overcrowding on trains.

Yeah I know, they actually have been doing that slowly but surely. Even with the Type 8s, they've been doing three-car trains with them too. Also for the fact that if I have to get a D or E train at Govt Centre to Park Street, I won't have to walk that much to get to the Red Line, since I'll be riding in the third car of such Green Line train.

The past year I lived near Comm. Ave in Brighton. They've been running 3 car trains on the B-Line since atleast last fall. Generally it would only be during the morning or evening commute. I've seen 3-car Type 7s and 3-car Bredas, but never a 3-car consist of Boeings. The impression I always got was that the number of available operators or available trolley cars was the limiting factor to seeing more 3 car trains.

even if some platforms aren't long enough for all three cars.....the train could always be pulled to the far end and the motorman in the rear car only open his/her front door, in case the rear doors were off the platform.

even if some platforms aren't long enough for all three cars.....the train could always be pulled to the far end and the motorman in the rear car only open his/her front door, in case the rear doors were off the platform.

I've seen 3-car Type 7s and 3-car Bredas, but never a 3-car consist of Boeings. The impression I always got was that the number of available operators or available trolley cars was the limiting factor to seeing more 3 car trains.

There was a 3-car train of Boeings (3462-3461-3493) running on the Riverside line yesterday afternoon.

I don't think there are any 3-car trains "officially" scheduled to operate even now, but the practice for the past couple of years has been to take one of the single rush-hour "run as directed" cars and tack it onto a scheduled two-car train, if an RAD car is available.

IIRC the peak Green Line equipment demand is somewhere around 150 cars, and the active fleet is 170-something. Depending on what's out for inspection and maintenance on any given day, there aren't a lot of extra cars sitting around. The situation is getting better as time goes on, now that the Type 8s seem to be behaving themselves. Eventually there will be a 215-car Green Line fleet, and 3-car trains should be able to be scheduled on a regular basis.

BTW... the practice of operating 3-car trains on a sporadic basis goes back to the late 1980s. Back then, only Boeings could be operated because the traction power system wasn't sufficient to handle the huge power draw of 3-car Type 7 trains. That was taken care of by the early 1990s when substations and overhead catenary on the Green Line were mostly replaced.

I sat in the third car and only one other person got on with me from deep in brighton all the way until Kenmore (where I changed because there was a Lechemere-bound D-train I needed to get to Haymarket on across the platform)

I know it was around rush hour and going the wrong direction (inbound), but still, one of the operators was telling people on the intercom that it was a three car train and they should board the rear car (no one did, but from that I'm guessing maybe the other two were filling up (I never saw)).

That's my 3-car B train story of the day.

Oh, and he came on over the intercom right before Blandford street and said something like "woah woah stop" and then we sat there for like 10 minutes (through several light cycles) and I never figured out why.